Archives

“Obama is to Tech as Edwards was to Poverty”

Both candidates have good people involved in their tech and internet policies, and the basic outlines of their policies are similar. The difference is in the degree of emphasis and engagement, and Obama to my mind has a much stronger vision of what he would do. It isn’t that Hillary Clinton has bad policies; rather, it’s the sense that, so far at least, neither tech nor telecom issues are of great importance to her campaign…..I have been impressed with the willingness of Obama, as a candidate, to speak on normally arcane issues like the 700 MHz auction, computer privacy, and patent policy. These positions, and other reasons, have led to things like the TechCrunch endorsement and my own support. For these issues don’t exactly make talk radio….I am optimistic that the Clinton campaign has its heart in the right place. Obama has become a leader on tech policy in the way Edwards was on poverty policy, but that doesn’t mean these ideas aren’t transferable. In the event that Clinton does win, my hope is that she ends up adopting Obama’s tech policies for the general election.